Antique Samplers

A spectacular Spanish sampler featuring many traditional motifs including a crowned lion, leaping stag, dogs both running and sitting, a cornucopia, a chicken, small vignettes of farms, a church, and a memorial, birds, baskets, flowers, a ewer, two alphabets and numerals stitched in both Arabic and Roman in the upper half. The lower half consists…

Stitched in cross stitch, red floss on linen, both in excellent condition, hem stitched on all four sides. The first measures 13″x 13″, and is dated 1860. The second features Greek key borders and is dated 1887.

Two French fashion plates, overlaid with real fabric and trims, 12″ x 15″ (frames add two inches). “La Mode Illustree”Bureaux du Journal56 rue Jacob, Paris

This sampler is very likely from Massachusetts and is framed in what could be the original frame (not pictured). It features two elegant houses at the top, three alphabets, a sawtooth satin stitched four sided border, and floral borders on the right and left. The verse is: Would you be wiseEach moment prize Stitches used…

Very finely stitched English sampler with alphabets and three verses at the top, with a scene featuring a large and elaborately detailed flower flanked by two enormous butterflies, within a four sided floral and Greek key border. The verses are: Come down sweet Jesus from aboveAnd feed my soul with heavenly love Remember Time will…

Probably English, this sampler features a “geode” bird (distinctive style seen on samplers made in England, The Netherlands, and America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries). The bird is flanked by flowers and hearts and surrounded by an extremely unusual four sided border of flying cherubs. The condition is fair, the color very…

A Scottish sampler stitched with wool threads on hand woven wool cloth, consisting of a series of alphabets, numerals and family initials including some illuminated initials and an impressive mansion house at the bottom. Stitches used are cross, eyelet, double running and counted satin. Condition is fair with some thread loss. The sampler measures 8-3/4″…

“Mama and Papa”, 10-1/2″ x 11″ (with the frame 13-1/2″ x 13″) and “AMH FHB TNH”, 11-1/2″ x 11″th frame 13-3/4″ x 13-3/4″), very good condition, with minor stains and wear.

Possibly Scottish, this adorable little sampler in very good condition features the phrase FEAR GOD, worked in eyelet stitch as its main focal point. Stitched on linen with fine wool threads, it is executed in shades of green, gold, red, rose, beige and brown with four rows of alphabets above the foreboding verse, with her…

Droughtville Forest 1807 This is a very unusual Irish sampler. The top third could pass as Scottish with the illuminated alphabets and beautiful, delicate double running stitch motifs. An unusual band of ten lozenges is stitched under the alphabets, each with a different petit point motif within in. The lower half of the sampler is…

This is a very unusual English sampler, extremely finely worked, but with considerable losses. Nonetheless it is a fascinating study piece. Many astonishing sections remain in reasonably good condition. It begins with five rows of alphabets done in eyelet, cross and counted satin stitches. The thread count approaches 60. The next section is a horizontal…

This sampler, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and cleaned and conserved by their staff, features six pattern darns surrounded by a four sided floral border stitched freehand with stem and satin stitches, including French knots, centering a floral cartouche stitched free hand on a very fine linen tiffany ground. Excellent color,…